JERUSALEM - Jordanian King Abdullah II has complained of bovine odors coming from the Israeli side of the frontier along the countries' shared southern border, Israel's environment minister said Monday.

Speaking to Israel Radio, Gideon Ezra said the smells, from a livestock quarantine facility, were blown across the frontier toward the king's palace in the town of Aqaba, on the Red Sea next to the Israeli town of Eilat. Jordanian officials contacted Israel last week and requested the odors be neutralized, Ezra said.

That's King PS2 for you: never complains about Israeli policies, but gets indignant when an unsavory smell drifts over into his palace. It probably distracts him when he's playing Grand Theft Auto III.

Issandr El Amrani is a Cairo-based writer and consultant. His reporting and commentary on the Middle East and North Africa has appeared in The Economist, London Review of Books, Financial Times, The National, The Guardian, Time and other publications. He also publishes one of the longest-running blog in the region, www.arabist.net.